It’s looking more and more likely that Jeb Bush is interested in making a presidential run, so maybe we should start looking at him.
I don’t know much about him, other than who his brother is. Was he a good governor? How far right is he? Does he have a chance?
What do you guys think?
He probably has a chance at the nomination just because all the old school [I don’t know what you want to call us but I refuse to go by RINO since I’ve been a part of this party since the 1970s, whatever the Tea Party and its 5 year history thinks] Republicans like myself would support him. He’d get all the same support in the nomination process that Romney did. When he was Governor of Florida and prior to his brother becoming President, Jeb was considered basically the superior of his brother in every way. Smarter, more competent, more moderate, better campaigner etc.
I actually don’t know that he’d really run. There is just no escaping the family connection, and that’s going to be an albatross. I don’t think you can just run against George W. Bush to beat him, but you don’t have to, in the public’s eye there’s going to be an association with GWB. While I think the short-attention span voters who rated Bush very lowly at the end of his term have now mostly moved on and don’t care about him, it’s still an albatross around his neck.
Then there is I think going to be a certain little r-republicanism intrinsic in the United States that I think would give people a subconscious aversion to making a guy President whose brother and father were both also President. Imagine a sitting President with two members of his nuclear family that were also President, it just smacks of a “dynasty” which is not what this country is about.
If GWB hadn’t won in 2000 and we’d had 8 years of Gore, I think Jeb could run and could win and would probably be a good President. But that’s not what happened so while I think he probably really wants to run I think he’ll see the sensible thing to do is not run.
The excitement is palpable! A bold new leader with fresh ideas to lead America into the 20th century! I stand ready to be even more impressed as soon as someone tells me what those bold, fresh ideas actually are! Jeb! To boldly go where damn near everybody has already been!
And what will GeeDub say when Jeb! asks him to campaign for him? Or, conversely, what will he say when Jeb! begs him not to?
If you HAD to have a Republican president, he would be one of the lesser evils. Of course you still get a guy who says he’s skeptical about global warming (because his corporate masters tell him to be), says he wants to move Medicaid from defined benefit to defined contribution, supports repeal of the estate tax, thinks Obamacare is flawed to the core, says Benghazi emboldens terrorists (although the numerous embassy and consulate attacks and killings during his brother’s watch did not), etc. He does have some sympathy for immigrants, though he’s constrained by the batshit wing of his party. Does he have a chance? I don’t know. If the whack-a-doodle wing splits their votes among several anti-Bushes in 2016 the way they failed to unite behind an un-Romney in 2012, maybe. If Ted Cruz and Rand Paul draw straws for who represents the nutcase wing and one drops out, then one of them gets the nomination.
Draw straws? Hell, no! Steel cage death match, pay-per-view, fill those campaign coffers to the brim! Now, being a lefty of refined tastes and culture, I certainly will not watch. Unless, you know, there’s nothing else on… Then, maybe.
He’s nothing like his brother. He speaks Spanish as well as any native speaker and used to give all his gubernatorial addresses in both languages (his wife is of Puerto Rican descent, IIRC.) Contrast that to W who struggled with English.
Politically, he’s a bit closer to where GWB was during his first campaign - “compassionate conservatism”, or lip service to Republican ideals while following a sort of Third Way path in real life.
He’s much less religiously demonstrative than W. I don’t know if that means he’s actually less religious or what it would mean for his social policy.
To look at him as GWB 2.0 would be wrong, basically. It would also be wrong to look at him as GHWB 2.0. He’d probably end up as a sort of Republican Clinton, and I assume we could all live with that.
And his record WRT the 2000 presidential election is another.
I can’t say exactly why, but I would find it disturbing to have the two Presidential candidates end up being Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. I mean, the brother of one former POTUS vs. the wife of another former POTUS seems like … I dunno, barrel scraping?
He’ll get some cred there, I think, just for being married to a Mexican.
But, so what, so is Lou Dobbs.
Except the Republicans, which is why he can’t be nominated. There is a major part of the GOP that is convinced Romney lost because he was not conservative enough, and they don’t want to make that mistake again. Jeb will be eliminated at approximately the same place Huntsman was in 2012. Too establishment, too moderate.
Land of Opportunity indeed.
His father was kinda well-known too, FWIW.
Now that Christie is having bridge problems, Jeb is vying filling the “sane Republican” niche in the political ecosystem. All told, he would probably be a better POTUS than any of the other Republicans being considered as possible contenders. However, given the baggage of W’s legacy, the fact that he is even being considered, goes to show just how sorry the slate of Republican candidates actually is.
If you’re not sypmathetic to the Tea Party, would that make you a Coffee Drinker or CDR? (Coffe-Drinking Republican)
[shrug] John Quincy Adams was the son of John Adams, the two Roosevelts were related and so were the two Harrisons.
Maybe, but maybe not. Part of me thinks the GOP needs to nominate our generation’s Goldwater and lose about 45 states in the electoral college to fully slay the Tea Party clowns and make them realize they don’t get to set party policy and in fact their only choice is to hold their nose and vote with establishment Republicans or stay home and let the hated Democrats win.
But at the same time, there’s going to be a lot of big money behind the establishment candidate in the primaries this time. While the loud ultra conservatives have bitched about Romney being too moderate, the more quiet but arguably more impactful Republican establishment has been saying that part of what hurt the Romney campaign is not having the nomination tied up until very late seriously hurt his fundraising ability and left him playing catch up to Obama for the entirety of the general. They establishment has also tweaked the primary rules a little bit again to try and keep guys like Santorum who are essentially vanquished from continuing to be relevant deep into the election cycle just because they haven’t been “mathematically eliminated” yet.
The Tea Party has a few big money donors, but the establishment has most of the old school big money donors, the corporate crowd, and much of the party infrastructure and whoever the establishment candidate is they are going to have a lot of intrinsic advantages over the Tea Party loon candidate.
I always thought he’d make a much better President than his Brother or his Father. He is smarter than the first and more compassionate than the second. I don’t think he’d make a better President than Hilary, though.
BrainGutton nailed his deepest vulnerability, it’ll be ablout the 2000 election. A lot of Floridians are still pretty hot about that, and I can’t think of a President, ever, who got elected without the support of his home district. I remember when the first returns came in saying W. had lost Florida, my first thought was “Not while his brother is Governor” and my second was “So much for Jeb’s political career.”
Really Not - it’s neither here nor there, but he was teaching ESL in Mexico when he met his wife. He was there on some sort of student exchange IIRC.
… So begins the snide comments from future Hillary Clinton voters.
The two Roosevelts were fairly distant relations, though. Actually Eleanor Roosevelt was much closer related to Theodore than Franklin, she was his niece–and yes, that means her maiden name was also Roosevelt making her wedding with FDR more Appalachian than the stereotypical Appalachian wedding. Theodore was only FDR’s fifth cousin. That’s a pretty far separation.
Benjamin Harrison though was quite closely related to William Henry–he was his grandson. John Quincy actually caught a good bit of flak due to being the son of a President, moreso than George W. Bush who never seemed to suffer from it (in fact it appeared to help him.) I guess early 19th century America was more fiercely Republican in its ideals and had a much bigger issue with the concept of “dynasties.”
State of residence or state of birth?
Wilson lost New Jersey (long time state of residence/base of political power as Governor of New Jersey) in his successful reelection bid of 1916, but won his state of birth (Virginia.)
Nixon lost his state of residence (New York) in his defeat of Humphrey, but won his home state of California.
Lincoln lost his home state (Kentucky) to Bell in the 1860 election, but won his long time state of residence (Illinois.)
Nixon had really always been associated with California, though, despite his state of residence in 1968 and he carried it in all three of his Presidential elections. Lincoln likewise is/was deeply associated with Illinois which he carried both times.
Wilson is the only one who lost the state he was “most associated with”, as Governor of New Jersey and previously President of Princeton he had made his professional and personal life in New Jersey and lost the state when up for reelection.